


Setting the Hook

by sanguinity



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-05
Updated: 2011-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-23 11:13:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unsure of when he'll see the Doctor again, Jack indulges in one last con.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Setting the Hook

**Author's Note:**

> Set during _that_ scene between Jack and the Doctor at the end of The Last of the Time Lords. Spoilers for New Who through series three, and the first series of Torchwood.

"I really don't mind though. Come with me," the Doctor offers to Jack.

Jack makes himself not glance at Martha. Back when he thought he had only one death to give, he had died for the Doctor. For one hundred and thirty-eight years, he had waited for the Doctor. He had rebuilt Torchwood for the Doctor. He had stayed behind on the _Valiant_ for the Doctor. And when the Doctor finally chooses to acknowledge Jack, to stop running away from Jack, this is the way of it: _I really don't mind._ Jack and Martha have already given too much to the Doctor, and Jack, at least, knows that he would give as much again. _It's like when you fancy someone, and they don't know you exist._ Jack doesn't glance at Martha, because he can't bear the possibility that while he and Martha are exchanging volumes about what they will never have from the Doctor, _that_ will be the moment when the Doctor will finally see Jack. Before today, it wouldn't have mattered: while serving the Doctor, Jack hadn't needed his own pride. In the Doctor's absence, however, Jack will.

So Jack babbles something about his team and responsibility. He is painfully aware that the last time he talked to the Doctor about Torchwood, he had been unable to meet the Doctor's glare. Torchwood Three is not anything the Doctor would recognize as a tribute: his team venially abusing their access to retcon and alien tech; his team shooting each other; bad decisions and selfish decisions and intra-office affairs and guns upon guns and the team coming apart like wet newspaper when finally given the opportunity to defend humanity. And not merely shredding itself in a fit of uselessness: actively hastening humanity's destruction.

"Defending the Earth," the Doctor agrees soberly, and Jack's chest clenches with the possibility that the Doctor knows exactly how much of a FUBAR Torchwood Three had been under Jack's command. "Can't argue with that."

When the Doctor reaches to disable Jack's vortex manipulator, Jack almost changes his mind. But then the Doctor makes a crack that the second time Jack used the manipulator, it was to apologize for the first, and Jack knows: despite the Slitheen and the Daleks and the _Valiant_ , despite the Doctor's sainted Rose loving Jack enough to make Jack immortal, the Doctor will always see Jack through the tainted lens of 1941. As an impulsive, careless, overarmed, oversexed con artist. Someone who can be trusted under supervision, but who cannot be trusted without.

It burns, even though Jack can admit that he is a better man under the Doctor than he is on his own. It burns because Jack fears it's true. And it fuels an urge to make the Doctor _see_ Jack, to _make_ the Doctor admit that Jack Harkness is someone that the Doctor could esteem.

Besides, Jack tells himself, the Doctor should have taken more care in what he believes of people: expectations are self-fulfilling.

So after another flirting remark, after the heartfelt salutes — oh god, but Jack is a mess of emotions right now — after what should have been the final goodbye, Jack impulsively reaches for an earnest expression and an old Time Agency story, and turns back to the Doctor one last time.

"But I keep wondering," Jack asks, "what about aging? Because I can't die, but I keep getting older?" He keeps it diffident, low-key. _Don't appear eager._ "The odd little gray hair, you know? What happens if I live for another million years?"

Jack can hear that he's overacting, but the advantage of never quite being taken seriously means that the Doctor misses the artificial note. The Doctor smiles indulgently. "I really don't know."

 _Let the Doctor feel superior. Deflect suspicion by confirming something he already believes._ "Okay, yeah, vanity. Sorry." Jack rubs his face, gives a self-conscious laugh. "Can't help it." He's laying it on too thick, but the Doctor still doesn't see it. Jack would be insulted, if it weren't exactly what he expected. "I used to be a poster boy when I was a kid, living in the Boeshane Penninsula." Jack has a century and a half of experience at setting the hook and then deflecting attention from it. Funny how the Doctor thinks of that as a subtle skill when the Doctor uses it, but as a sign of dissolution when Jack does. "Tiny little place. I was the first one ever to be signed up for the Time Agency." The Doctor nods, still indulgent. Jack pushes to the end, unwilling to risk blowing the con by spinning the story longer. "They were so proud of me. The Face of Boe, they called me."

The Doctor's face slowly goes slack. Jack feels a cold, hard joy: Jack has successfully unmoored a piece of the Doctor's world. _This should hurt more,_ Jack thinks, and for the first time, he feels no conflict about his decision to not go in the TARDIS. Jack nods a goodbye with something that both is satisfaction and isn't. "I'll see you." It takes all Jack's discipline to turn and jog away, but nothing, not even savoring the Doctor's full reaction, is worth disturbing the doubts he has just seeded in the Doctor's mind.

It is much, much later, well into a bottle of Jack D and with the CCTV footage from the Plass looping on his laptop screen — even at that distance, the Doctor's discomfiture had been visible — that Jack remembers: prophecies have a way of being self-fulfilling.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Grrlpup, who pointed out that Jack was deliberately playing the Doctor.


End file.
